The Green Sheet Online Edition

June 13, 2016 • Issue 16:06:01

New Products

Next-generation API for vast, underserved market

Product: DigitzsCompany: Digitzs Solutions Inc.

Digitzs Solutions Inc., based in Santa Monica, Calif., created Digitzs, a solution designed to serve a middle market that exists between card swipes and shopping cart checkouts. Mobile apps, marketplaces and white-label platforms inhabit this trillion-dollar, underserved space, which Digitzs leaders have defined as the next frontier of payments.

"We come from Visa, PayPal and Apple, and we are here to make payments painless for apps, marketplace and platform CEOs," said Laura Wagner, Digitzs founder and Chief Executive Officer. "Our job is to make platforms look like processors; thousands of merchants using these platforms will never know our name."

Wagner, an entrepreneur who pioneered payments at McDonald's Corp., assembled a team of industry veterans, including PayPal Inc.'s first Chief Financial Officer, David Jaques; Linda Perry, formerly a senior executive with Visa Inc.; Ben Way, a startup technologist; and Stacey Moore, a technologist, strategist and entrepreneur. The team raised $2.5 million for Digitzs via Crowdfunder in 2015.

A platform's platform

Ticketing enterprises, nonprofit foundations and property management service providers are examples of entities using white-label platforms to facilitate payments. These technology solution providers can integrate Digitzs' application programming interface (API) in less than an hour to provide a seamless processing experience to their extended merchant families across an array of vertical industries, Digitzs stated.

Event promoters, charitable organizations and property managers can obtain global merchant accounts in seconds without leaving the platform's site or brand. Digitzs will collect the platform's fees and merchant fees from each transaction, eliminating the platform's need to invoice monthly or carry risk associated with traditional payment facilitation.

Digitzs is a merchant account facilitator rather than a payment facilitator such as Stripe Inc., WePay Inc. and PayPal. The company shares processing revenue with resellers, who are paid in two days and can incorporate their own value-added fees into their pricing models. The Digitzs API supports Visa, MasterCard Worldwide and American Express Co. processing in 160 countries and most local currencies, the company reported.

"Think of us as a gateway connected to Visa, MasterCard and American Express," Wagner said. "We facilitate merchant accounts in white-label from within your site, process transactions, split payments, pay commissions and provide reporting to you."

'Painless,' payments API

Digitzs underwrites merchant agreements for apps, marketplaces and platform service providers. The company pointed out that it absorbs all risk and moves transactions without touching money or seeing credit card data. Cost-free automated clearing house payment processing achieved via the Digitzs API is also on the company's near-term product roadmap.

A recent study by management consulting firm Accenture PLC identified platforms as a "new normal" and leading business trend in 2016. Digitzs stated that with an estimated $1 billion in processing revenue in the pipeline from platform CEOs, it has attracted high-profile investors, including Mark C. Thompson, who has coached CEOs at Virgin, Pinterest, Schwab, AmEx and Apple Inc; Barbara Lazaroff, co-founder of Spago and creator of Wolfgang Puck Brand; and Kevin Harrington, an investor who has appeared on the popular TV show Shark Tank.

Payment facilitation solved

"I've processed billions in card payments for my infomercials on behalf of clients, and it's never an easy process," Harrington said. "Digitzs has the team, the technology and the traction to be the next big disruptor in the trillion-dollar platform payments space."
Mark Miller, CEO of TicketSocket, added, "We have integrated with virtually every old-school and new-age payment provider around. I am so impressed with how Digitzs is solving all of our payment facilitation needs in a single API that I am considering an investment in this round."

Miller further noted that Digitzs is simple to sell because the platform does all the work. He expects the solution's earnings potential, combined with its simplicity and ease-of-use, will attract additional fintech innovators, resellers and channel partners.

Digitzs also plans to hire select national sales managers. Ideal candidates will be teachable, technology-savvy and experienced in enterprise-level sales, the company stated.